


moje sunce, moje nebo

by brampersandon



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Croatia NT, Euro 2008, Fumbling Handjobs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-13
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:09:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brampersandon/pseuds/brampersandon
Summary: After Wembley, he thinks they're unstoppable.





	moje sunce, moje nebo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipwrecks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwrecks/gifts).



> happy last minute sub, glennifer! ♥ hopefully some vintage vatreni fic is up your alley.
> 
> title comes from _moja domovina_ because of course it does.

Bilić's voice is like honey over the phone. Ivan thinks of the videos he's watched, how impossibly cool he is when he plays guitar — that same attitude must translate to his management. He's never talked to a coach like him before. Casual, approachable, a guy who'd strike up a conversation with him at a cafe and somehow end up as a lifelong friend — but no less passionate about football than anyone else in his position. There's a fire behind his laid back demeanor, and Ivan can hear it at the edges of his words.

"It's your choice, of course," he's saying, "Though I don't think it's much of a choice at all. You want to play for the greatest team in the world, don't you?"

"I do."

"And I want you to as well." Something swells in his chest — not just confidence, not just pride. Something deep and resonant none of the Swiss coaches ever inspired in him.

He doesn't get a chance to answer before Bilić says, "Think about it," and hangs up. 

There's no need. His mind is made up before he sets the phone down. Ivan lets himself rest for a second, breathes through it. He's young, but he's no less aware that this is a significant fork in his future's path. And it's clear, so clear.

He pats his palms against his bedspread once, twice, three times for courage before he dials Bilić back.

"I said think on it," he chides him by way of greeting, but there's a fondness to it.

"I've been thinking," Ivan says too quickly, "I'm not that patient." When Bilić laughs, he finds himself laughing too, shallow and shaky. Then he inhales deeply, sits upright to steady himself, and strikes out for new ground. "I'll play for you. I'll play for Croatia. I'm in."

 

 

 

 

"What are you nervous for?" his father asks, sitting next to him at the airport terminal and tapping his rolled up newspaper against Ivan's jittering leg. 

Ivan fiddles with the cap of his water bottle, swallows hard on purpose so the painful spike in his throat can buy him a little time. There's no good way to explain it. He's aware how it looks — born and raised abroad, never made the trek back for any of their youth teams, showing up now to try to carve out some glory that barely belongs to him. What's he nervous for? Teammates won't accept him. Fans won't like him. Bilić will realize he made a mistake. He'll never play again, not for either country taking up room in his heart.

None of it is enough to stop him from going, though, so he's not going to give it any power by putting words to it. "I don't like flying," he answers instead. "You know that."

His father glances at him sidelong. "It's a short flight. Up and down. You'll barely notice it."

Ivan waves a dismissive hand through the air before tucking his thumbnail between his teeth, staring a hole into the empty seats across from them. Eventually his father leans over, reminds him for the dozenth time not to trade his kit with anyone after the match, he's already claimed it as his own — and just like it has every time before, it soothes something rattling around inside his heart, quiets his mind. He looks at his father, grins.

 

 

 

 

Bilić slaps his back and calls him Raketa like he's known him his whole life, and in a way, he has. 

"I watch everyone," he says when he addresses the group. _Dammit_ , Ivan thinks, _I was right_ — he's just as slick standing in front of them in the hotel's conference room as he is onstage. His shoulders slope lazily, hands tucked into his pockets, but his feet are planted firmly on the ground — at once tall and commanding, relaxed and affable. Ivan feels a fierce loyalty toward him immediately, and it's only made worse when he goes on. "You'll see new faces here and in the near future, because I'm watching _everyone_. We have more talent than we know what to do with, and we're going to take it all the way to the final. I will get you there. Trust me. I will. _We will_."

Mladen leans over and speaks close to his ear with a wicked grin, "You look like you're in love." He catches a sharp elbow in the ribs for it and hisses as he pinches Ivan's side right back. Mladen is a gift from God — it's unfathomably helpful, having somebody here he knows, somebody he looks up to and who doesn't mind taking him under his wing — but he's also a huge dick when he wants to be. 

Ivan's still a kid. He has no idea what falling in love feels like. But maybe, he thinks later as he lays flat on his back in bed and stares up at the darkened ceiling while Mladen snores away, maybe it's something like this. Not with Bilić, Jesus, of course not, but— with the team, with the whole concept of being here with all of them. It feels like something bigger than he can contain in his heart and in his head.

It feels like waking up after a long trip and finding himself home.

 

 

 

 

He's seen Luka before — on television, during the World Cup, practically drowning in his kit as he trotted onto the pitch during substitutions in fruitless draws. Even then he'd known he was seeing something special. 

He watches him now, still diminutive — especially flanked by Ćorluka and Kranjčar as they line up against Estonia — but fiercely determined in a way that didn't translate when he was watching him on a screen. Kranjčar shifts next to him, always working out some nervous energy in his limbs, and Ćorluka grins like an idiot when the anthem rings out. But Luka stares at a fixed point high above all of them, doesn't move, doesn't blink.

Ivan tells himself he's hyper-focused on the midfield because that's his competition, that's where he's supposed to slide himself in, that's who he has to gel with immediately so Bilić doesn't write him off as a one-time spark of promise that never caught on. He's not lying to himself with any of that, strictly speaking. But it doesn't fully explain why his eyes stay glued on Luka, who doesn't play like his size implies at all. He's not frail. Not shy. He's a terror, actually, in the most beautiful way — he carves a clear path through Estonia's defense and never seems to lose his footing, not for a second.

They're two goals up when Bilić shouts at him to get ready, as if he hasn't been warming up since the second half began and nursing a stupid, fluttering blossom of hope. It's happening, he tells himself, it's _finally happening_ , he's coming on at the Maksimir, he's coming on for Kranjčar— and their fans are applauding wildly for him as he comes off, pushing his sweaty hair off his forehead before high-fiving Ivan. 

The applause doesn't stop.

It keeps ringing out through the stadium even after Kranjčar's sat himself down on the bench, even as Ivan's jogging to his place to the right of Luka and straining to hear his instructions. He has to shout to be heard over the swell of noise that hasn't subsided.

And then one corner of his mouth lifts up and he says, "They like you."

Play resumes, and it takes Ivan a couple minutes of finding his footing before he understands what Luka meant. All that raucous noise from the crowd, all that cheering, that was for him. They've heard about him. They're excited to see him. Him, some kid, some Swiss nobody, some—

Some midfielder for Croatia, he realizes as he neatly traps the ball under his foot, muscle memory, and passes it long and elegant to Eduardo running down the flank.

 

 

 

 

Mladen gathers him in his arms after the match, kisses the top of his head and tells him how well he did. "Like a natural," he enthuses, jostling him from side to side. "Have you been with us the whole time?" 

It's embarrassing, just how much that kind of effusive praise means to him. He presses his grin against the crook of Mladen's neck before he turns his attention toward their crowd, seeking out his father, tugging off his kit as he goes.

 

 

 

 

He feels a bit like a child as they linger in the airport again, awaiting their flight to Andorra. His father went back home after their match and he's on his own now, trying to find where he fits. He could attach himself to Mladen's side again, of course, wedge himself into the conversation he's having with Olić and Robert, but he doesn't want to cling. Or. Well. He _does_ want to cling, desperately so, he just doesn't want anyone else to see him doing it.

Instead he turns, sees Srna stretched out across two seats with his legs draped lazily over Niko's lap, Luka and Ćorluka idling in front of him as the three of them chat and Niko attempts sleep. It's a safe bet, he thinks. It's that or try to crack Pletikosa's steely gaze and he's not sure he's up to that yet.

So he sidles up as naturally as he can, hovers slightly behind Luka before Srna beckons him to actually join them. He's got a wide, warm smile that crinkles the bruise on his cheek from a ball he took the face in training a couple days earlier. "Sit," he says, gesturing to the seat next to him. 

It would be rude to turn him down. When he sits, Niko opens his eyes briefly, lifts one lazy hand in greeting and then shuts them again.

"Ignore him," Ćorluka laughs. "He's old, and he's cranky about being old."

"Doesn't play like he's old," Ivan tries.

That only serves to make him laugh harder, but it isn't unkind. "Ass kisser." Then he kicks one foot out to hit Ivan's knee. "Want to go out with us when we get to Andorra?"

Just like that. An invitation to be with the group— really be with them, not just in training and at the hotel. His father told him this would be the best part of his travels — not the stadiums and the dressing rooms, but the rest of the world out there waiting for him to see it, the people he could see it with. He told him to soak it up, not take a moment for granted. 

Even so, he must look apprehensive because Luka finally pipes up, "You don't have to say yes if you don't want to."

His voice is deeper than Ivan realized when they were on the pitch together.

"No, I want to," he says, maybe a touch too eager. "Just come get me from my room whenever you go. I'll go too."

The smile Luka shoots him is reassuring, even when Ćorluka throws an arm around him and crows about how _fucking precious_ this kid is.

 

 

 

 

He plays it safe that night — nobody wants to be the guy who drinks too much on his first outing with the national team and gets kicked out before he can even score a single goal — and gently refuses the third glass of wine Charlie offers him. He insists on being called Charlie, just like he insists on calling him Raketa, and it'd be obnoxious if he wasn't so damn charming. 

"That's Charlie," Luka shrugs when Ivan mentions it out loud, the two of them watching him chat up the waitress and parrot Catalan phrases back at her. "He has a way of getting people to do what he wants."

They've been friends a long time, Luka explains further. Came up through the Dinamo Zagreb system together, went out on loan together, started playing for the national team together. For a moment Ivan thinks, right, this is how most all of them know each other, he missed out on that by not starting his career in Croatia, he's missed out on so much— but then he remembers Mladen telling him once, just a tinge of bitterness beneath his tone, that he was probably better off that way. 

"This is how we became friends," he's saying, gesturing around the bar. "He made me go out with him for a drink after a match and then we never stopped hanging out."

He says it with finality, like it should mean something. Ivan doesn't know what. He only stares at him blankly, and then Luka smiles back, eyes mischievous. "It means he likes you." He bumps his shoulder against Ivan's. "They all do. Don't be so nervous."

And because the bar's dark and warm, and because he downed those two glasses too fast before they even got their tapas, and because he's an idiot, he asks Luka, "Do you like me?"

When Luka laughs, he throws his head back, and it's somehow louder than Ivan ever expected to come out of a little guy like him. He never answers, just laughs some more, lays an arm over Ivan's shoulders and sips his own wine. 

It doesn't settle Ivan's nerves any, but they're different now, mutating under the warm weight of Luka's arm around him.

 

 

 

 

Five goals up and clean sheet firmly in hand, Bilić presses a palm between his shoulder blades while he waits at the touchline for Eduardo to make his way off. "It's a party out there now," he murmurs against Ivan's ear, "So just go out and have fun."

It's true, Andorra's hardly a threat, they're all ping ponging the ball back and forth between them like it's a kickabout in the street. They don't _need_ another goal. They just need to see this result out.

But something nags at the back of Ivan's mind, some dark thought he hasn't been able to shake this week, no matter how kindly Bilić treats him. He doesn't want this to be his last appearance with Croatia. He wants to come back next month, and then again in November. He wants to be there when they qualify for the Euro, he wants to go with them to the tournament, he wants to play, he wants to make his father proud, he wants, he wants, he wants—

He wants to prove he deserves everything he wants and more.

So when the opportunity for a penalty comes up, he can barely hear Srna over his heartbeat pounding in his own ears when he tells him to take it. 

Ivan stares at Andora's keeper, feels the pressure bearing down on him even though this couldn't matter less for the team as a whole. 

He takes four steps backwards. Takes a deep breath. Thinks of the shirt on his back. Thinks of watching Šuker take his penalty nearly a decade ago, silent in front of the television with his brother and his father. Thinks of his father watching at home now. Thinks of what it'll mean if he does this.

It matters, he decides. Not just to him. It matters.

 

 

 

 

Pletikosa hands him a cigarette in the dressing room, tells him it's tradition when you score your first goal for them. Somehow, the way they all laugh when he turns it down and explains that he doesn't smoke actually makes his heart feel even lighter. 

"Told you all," Mladen says and plucks the cigarette away for himself. "He's a fucking wonderkid."

 

 

 

 

After Wembley, he thinks they're unstoppable.

Ivan will learn in time what a sharp blade hope can be, how to temper it so it doesn't turn against him. But for the moment, he's nineteen, he's on the pitch at Wembley, he's running as fast as he can to the rest of his team, he's grabbing Luka's hand along the way and letting himself get swept up into them. He thinks, _if we can do it here, we can do it anywhere_. He thinks, _it's our tournament to lose_ , and he's so certain of it, nothing and no one can change his mind.

 

 

 

 

And all at once, with one stupid mistake, it unravels.

So much of what happens in Austria and Switzerland feels like dreaming awake. Starting against Germany. Assisting Olić's goal. Cementing his place alongside Luka and Kranjčar in the midfield. Being lauded as one of the best young talents. Making it out on top of their group. They beat Poland and in the dressing room he asks Luka to punch his arm, make sure he isn't back home in Möhlin sleeping through this whole damn tournament. 

The shootout jars him into reality, as shocking as his brother packing snow down his shirt. The ground beneath his feet feels solid suddenly. Not the jet stream that's been buffeting him along in every match. Too real. Too many horrors compounding too quickly.

Mladen stepping up barely registers for him. One moment he's cupping his hands over his mouth and praying soft and fast, the next he's on the ground with no recollection of how he got there. Ivan lays back, pulls his shirt over his face, doesn't move a muscle until someone tells him to get off the pitch. It's not theirs anymore. Time to go. Time to go home.

 

 

 

 

Mladen disappearing once they get back to the hotel should worry Ivan, but he doesn't have the energy for it. Their room is dark and quiet and exactly what he needs. The noise of the stadium's still reverberating in his ears, but as he lays face down on his bed, arms and legs spread like a starfish, it starts to fade. Breathe in. Think of their jeers. Breathe out. Know they aren't here. 

Everything's numb, unbelievably so.

Eventually he rolls onto his side, stares at the rosary hanging off the post of Mladen's bed, follows the looping beads with his eyes until they get heavy enough to close without replaying the match behind them.

 

 

 

 

The knock that startles him awake is loud and persistent. For a brief moment of blind panic, Ivan thinks he slept through their wakeup call and missed the plane back to Zagreb, but when he sits up he sees the glowing red digits on the alarm clock. Half past midnight. Still no Mladen when he flicks on the lamp between their beds. Still that knocking.

"Charlie finally raged himself to sleep," Luka shrugs when he opens the door. "I can't."

"Yeah, me neither," Ivan says automatically and has no idea why. It's obvious from the mess of his hair and his bleary eyes that he's been asleep. Luka doesn't mention it, just gives him a grateful smile as he gestures for him to come in.

He rubs both hands over his face and crawls back onto his bed, sits up against the headboard. "Sit," he tells him, but Luka stays standing awkwardly at the foot of the bed. He looks almost haunted. In the clear light of the room, Ivan can see splotches of ruddiness on his cheeks, red at the corners of his eyes and dark circles beneath them. 

He's been crying.

"I can't understand it," he says, and it's not the first time any of them have said that tonight, Bilić included. "It turned too quickly, I keep thinking we should get to do it over. Like it wasn't legal. Like…"

He trails off, runs a hand through his hair. It's fluffy again, Ivan notices, like he found time in his stupor to shower. Ivan hasn't. Didn't in the locker room either. The atmosphere of the Ernst-Happel clings to him like a film of sweat. 

"We could have won," he goes on, and Ivan hates that waver in his voice, fucking loathes it. "We broke down after I missed. I shouldn't have missed. We still could have won."

Telling him it wasn't his fault won't help. Ivan knows. He's been thinking the same thing about his own performance all night. "Sit," he says, firmer this time, because he can't say anything else. 

This time Luka does, after a long moment of consideration. It feels weird, Ivan thinks, the two of them sitting cross legged on a hotel bed staring at each other — and just as he's about to admit how weird _everything_ feels and how he's afraid nothing will ever feel normal again, Luka crawls up the bed, places a hand on his shoulder, and pushes him back.

He goes easily, back hitting the pillows, legs uncurling slowly and spreading to accommodate Luka settling between them. Like his body is on autopilot. Luka's hand is still curled over his shoulder, his hair hanging down in his eyes as he hovers over Ivan.

Their breathing, the rain hitting the window at a steady beat, a muffled television from the next room over. Nothing more breaks the silence between them before Luka drops down, presses the slim line of his body along Ivan's as he kisses him. The hand on his shoulder drifts up to cup his cheek, and Ivan lets out a shuddering gasp when he opens his mouth for him.

They all deal with a loss like that in their own ways, Ivan tells himself. Mladen and Olić will drink themselves sick and somehow, inevitably, end up in the pool with only Klasnić to watch over them. Maybe some others will hear the noise and join them. Darijo's probably spending the whole night with their medical team or on the phone with his father. Undoubtedly, most of them are sleeping for twelve hours straight, just like he would have if Luka hadn't woken him.

But he did. And he's here. And Ivan's busy wrapping both legs around his waist, rocking up against him, already embarrassingly hard through his shorts. 

"Are you okay with this?" he murmurs against Luka's lips, eyes still tightly shut just in case looking at him head on might bring things to an end. It makes Luka laugh, tired and right into his mouth before he breaks away and nudges his nose against Ivan's jaw to tip his chin up.

"I mean. I'm here, so. Yes. Are you?"

Ivan imagines Mladen wandering in. That's his only hesitation. But it's nothing they haven't already done too, so— he hopes the way he slips his hand down the front of Luka's sweatpants is answer enough.

It's funny that he ever thought Luka quiet when they first met, because when Ivan palms at him through his briefs he makes a noise so loud Ivan has to kiss him again to shut him up. He shares a wall with Niko, he doesn't want their captain to hear this. He only lets Luka pull away long enough to yank off his shirt, kick off his pants, and he knows he's staring at him dumbstruck, but he can't stop himself. 

"Everyone thinks you're skinny," he blurts out, "You're not. You're jacked."

That pulls another laugh out of Luka. It's such a relief, watching him relax incrementally like this, knowing it's because of him. 

They don't talk about it, exactly, because talking about anything feels beyond impossible. Maybe next time, Ivan thinks, if he's lucky enough to get a next time, he'll bury his face against Luka's collarbone and ask him to fuck him — but for now he's content to wrap his hand around Luka's cock and keep grinding up against his thigh. 

Ivan's used to feeling young and stupid and entirely lacking finesse, but it's not that way with Luka. Probably more a function of how worn out they both are than an actual reflection on Luka, but tonight he's just as quick and desperate as Ivan. He shoves his hips against Ivan's to give him a little more friction, doesn't touch him, instead skates a hand idly up and down his chest. When he presses a little harder, dragging blunt nails down over Ivan's ribs, he likes the noise Ivan makes enough to do it again.

That's as much as he can handle before he fists his free hand in Luka's hair and crashes their mouths together when he comes. It's as close as he's been to crying since they left the pitch.

He's too slipped out of time to keep up his pace, his limbs don't even feel connected to his body anymore, and he's only aware of how his hand has slowed when Luka closes his own over it. He helps Ivan get him off, and fuck, _that's_ an unfathomably hot scenario Ivan never let himself dream of before. He only lets go when Luka does.

They're a fucking mess. He has both of them all over his stomach and chest, and Luka doesn't seem to care at all, collapsing half on top of him and resting his face in the curve of Ivan's neck.

"You're really good," he mumbles.

That draws an exhausted, confused noise out of him. Luka lifts his head and laughs. "Not now— although now, yes, that was good too, but. On the pitch." Ivan blinks at him, feeling slow and stupid, like they couldn't possibly be having this conversation right now, doesn't Luka realize what they just did— but then he says plainly, "I'm glad you decided to play for us," and closes his mouth over Ivan's again. 

They've still lost in the worst way, still been eliminated from their best shot at a trophy in ten years, but the dream isn't entirely dead. Ivan feels it piecing itself back together in his heart, right beneath Luka's hand.

**Author's Note:**

> \- [ivan's players' tribune](https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/ivan-rakitic-croatia-the-best-shirt-in-the-world) is required reading re: his dad, his relationship with slaven bilić, his decision to play for croatia over switzerland, on and on.
> 
> \- transporting back to 2007-08 for this made me miss mladen petrić so much? so there is a lot more of him in this fic than i meant there to be! for newer vatreni fans, mladen played for croatia from 2001 - 2013, although his peak was 2007 - 2009. he was instrumental in croatia qualifying for euro 2008 and famously scored [the goal that knocked england out of qualifiers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZUUwhWt77k). he and ivan played together at fc basel from 2005 - 2007, and he helped ivan settle in once he got called up the national team.
> 
> \- during euro 2008, croatia lost to turkey in the quarter-finals penalty shootout. luka and ivan shot both their penalties wide, and mladen had his saved. it was by and large [the worst match ever](http://www.espn.com/soccer/european-championship/74/blog/post/2890605/croatia-still-haunted-by-euro-2008-heartache-against-turkey?src=com) and every member of the team was a mess afterward.
> 
> \- thank you for reading! ♥ you can find me on [tumblr](http://strikerbacks.tumblr.com) for all your vintage vatreni needs.


End file.
